That’s nothing to worry about. Not being designed to DC Fast Charge is different than not being able to absorb lots of energy quickly. The Pacifica battery could DC Fast Charge at 50kW just like the Outlander if it had the necessary components. I think that was more of a cost/benefit decision than a “battery can’t do it” decision. But you can be sure this was engineered for in the design of the hybrid system. The battery has lots of cooling capacity from the chiller on the battery loop. And if it got too hot the van would shut down. (Unlikely as long as your A/C was working). And if you’re going down a mountain and you fill the battery the van will start burning off energy by using Motor A in the transaxle to direct torque to the engine and turning it over. It doesn’t start the ICE, it is just spinning it, burning off energy as much as possible, in order to maintain your regen capability in L. I know some EVs in similar situations will also do things like running the A/C and electric heat simultaneously just to again burn energy to maintain regen. They might run all the cooling pumps at full speed. Just whatever they can do to maintain regen so you aren’t in a situation where your brakes get overheated and fail. Most EVs also give you the option to cap the battery charge level if you are charging at the top of a mountain so you have room to regen in to. Some used to actually call it “Mountain Top Charge Mode” or something similar.
Dear SKPacHy if you could elaborate more about this special mode that some EVs offer: Mountain Top Charge Mode or Charge Capping.
This is pretty common in the EV world. Especially with something like a Tesla. They give you the option to stop charging the vehicle at a certain percentage. Tesla actually recommends you set it to charge to 80% unless you’re going long distance. Anyway, at the top of a mountain, you would set the car to charge to less than 100% so there’s some battery capacity unused that you can put regen energy in to. The Chevy Bolt called this Hilltop Reserve Mode. It would then charge the battery to between 80% and 90% or so for the same reason. Some vehicles may not have that option, but instead their batteries have a reserve capacity at all times that’s not normally usable by the driver. That can be for things like this scenario or for battery longevity or warranty issues. With batteries with a built in reserve they will often allow the vehicle to use that reserve for regen when braking, but not for charging. The regen use they know will be a temporary condition. That’s what the Pacifica does. It only charges to around 90% of the batteries actual capacity. Now when coming down a big mountain that last 10% may not be enough, and that’s where the other tricks come into play. A PHEV has more options than an EV in this scenario as it has more ways to “waste” energy, like spinning the ICE without starting it.
I was on the bike
The system is not designed to accept the external DC charge, but it deals with similar power internally. If you watch the power flow meter on the main screen, you'll see that an acceleration or a maximum regen at high speed move close to 100KW. The question is- how long this level of power can be sustained? Maximum charge/discharge rates are limited by the battery cooling capacity. PacHy will allow driving 82MPH in the EV only mode. At this speed the battery will fully drain in 20 minutes. So gaining 50% in 12 minutes should be within the specs.
That sweet spot changes with conditions. It’s all about “braking effort”. You push the pedal and request a certain braking effort. The computer then decides how it will achieve that, either through regen or friction or both. The booster is talking to the HCP to work all that out. Most of the time this van brakes on regen alone until you reach around 10km/h. Unless you request more braking effort than the computer thinks regen can provide. Then it will mix in the friction brakes. In the Pacifica there is also an ultimate override that will bypass the electric booster and just apply pressure right to the pads. You get that by just hammering the pedal beyond even the “Emergency assist braking” point. But the computer will use things like speed inputs to determine braking effort. It may even use gyro data to know if it’s going up or down a hill.
